Somerville and Ross Part i

Edith Somerville was an Anglo Irish writer, who wrote several novels and stories, in collaboration with her cousin and good friend, Violet Martin…

Even after Violet’s death, Edith continued to write using her partner’s name because she believed that her cousin was still influencing her writing. She believed in spiritualism and tried to contact her by séances.

 They wrote as “Somerville and Ross”. 
Edith was born in 1858, in Corfu, where her father, a member of the Anglo Irish gentry was stationed on military service...
They moved back to Cork, in Ireland, and settled there, in one of the “big Houses.”  She was highly intelligent and her family allowed her to have a good education and to go abroad to study art.

She loved the country and riding and outdoor life. While by today’s standards she was “snobbish”, she did love the Irish people and felt that she understood them… She had a warm relationship with her work people and the tenants... She was very interested in the way that the Irish spoke English - and the amusing expressions and ability to talk well that most Irish people possessed.

 She met Violet Martin, whom she had not known before, in 1886... and they became close friends.   Violet was more conservative than her cousin, and was a strong Unionist, whereas Edith was increasingly sympathetic to the Irish Nationalist cause.  Both women however were suffragists and believed that women should have the vote and that they were capable of leading independent lives.  Both were keen horsewomen and loved hunting. In later life Edith managed the family property as well as writing and being involved in women’s politics.

Violet’s family came from Galway, from a landed estate, but they lost it due to various financial problems.  The Great Famine bankrupted many landlords and the Martins were caring landlords and tried to help their tenants, so they eventually found that their financial  problems had resulted in the loss of the estate.  They moved to Dublin. Living in genteel poverty in Dublin gave her a certain knowledge and breadth of experience which helped her with her writing. 
Francie, one of the leading characters in their best novel, the Real Charlotte, comes from an impoverished but Protestant background... who lived in genteel poverty in Dublin and nearby Bray…Violet was probably the better writer of the two, and she could not have created Francie, and given a picture of  middle class not so well off Protestants, without her having lived in Dublin.

End of Part I